The present invention relates to methods and apparati involving distributed and networked autopoietic artificial intelligence systems with applications in a number of areas, including computing, industrial production, education, entertainment health, and telecommunication. More particularly, although not exclusively, the present invention relates to methods and apparati adapted to create, establish, operate and maintain integrated network systems which provides functionality for distance sensing, action, management and communications operations and activities and referred to as telesthesia (remote sensing, including television), telemetry of remote spaces and devices (remote measurements of physical parameters), telekinesis (remote mechanical action), telepresence (interpersonal audio-visual interaction at distance), telemanagement of remote devices (such as remote operation and control of complex plants, remote management of energy supply and use), and telecommunications (transfer of information of any kind across distances), and enable the provision of related services to third parties. The invention also relates to systems, models and methodologies for use with such systems.
Over the last two decades, a number of domains of economic activity related to the use of networks have entered a phase of rapid technological change. These domains include applications requiring the use of networked computers and/or parallel computing, networks of electronic devices of various kinds, and various forms of artificial intelligence and expert systems such as in banking, education, entertainment, health, scientific research, various forms of telecommunications, energy supply and use, water distribution and many facets of local and international commerce and trade.
Changes in these domains are requiring a fast expansion of network throughput capacity, quality of service, such as rates of data transmission and latency, and the range of services capable to be delivered by networked systems. In parallel, there is also a rapidly increasing demand for the supply of services through mobile units (handheld, carried on or by a person such as cellular phone, laptop computer, or installed in a vehicle) that are comparable or equivalent to those provided through fixed units (such as fixed phone devices or desk top computers).
Conventional telecommunications and/or media networks, and related industries, are seeking to respond to the new demands by developing new interactive systems capable of delivering video-phone, video-conferencing, video-on-demand, and Internet services in addition to existing data and voice services. These improvements, however, do not fully meet the emerging new demands. The long term trend is towards the provision of low-cost, high reliability telesthesia, telekinesis, telepresence, telemetry, telemanagement, and telecommunication services based on network systems endowed with distributed artificial intelligence. These services or forms of functionality are closely interrelated. In order to stress this interrelationship, and to facilitate the description of this invention, in the remainder of the text these services are abbreviated as telhex services. This functionality is defined as follows:
Telesthesiaxe2x80x94functionality refers to remote sensing, including television in the sense broadcasting audio-visual images and remote collection of audio-visual material. It also includes the other human senses such as touch and smell, albeit in limited forms at present, such as through various so-called virtual reality devices and systems. Beside broadcasting applications in the entertainment industry (such as various forms of television), telesthesia applications include the remote monitoring and surveillance of areas, such as a central business district (CBD) and of premises.
Telemetryxe2x80x94is an extension of telesthesia that refers to the remote carrying out of specific measurements of physical parameters such as temperature, pressure, force, mass, pH, voltage, current, harmonics, digital states, geographical location, and so on. Specific applications include the remote measurement and recording of supply and/or use of energy (power, gas), operating fluids (water, effluents, gases), discrete masses and devices (particles, powders, objects, and so on), monitoring of movements, tracking of vehicles, navigation, and related operations, remote operation of medical and health related devices for remote patient monitoring, remote operation of scientific instruments, and the like.
Telekinesisxe2x80x94refers to remote mechanical action by way of actuating mechanical, electronic, or chemical devices or a combination of these. Specific applications include remote operation of safety and/or health related devices such as railway crossings, traffic lights, health care equipment such as home breathing equipment, remote surgical operations, security of premises and vehicles (like operation and locking of doors), remote operation of machinery in difficult or dangerous environments.
Telepresencexe2x80x94is a further extension of telesthesia, telemetry and telekinesis for personal interactions at distance with other people, objects, devices or animals. Telepresence functionality includes audio and videophony but also extends into uses of a wide range of networked virtual reality techniques and robotics to achieve as comprehensive as might be required a human presence at a distance.
Telemanagementxe2x80x94refers to the remote management of devices or systems such as the remote operation and control of complex plants, the remote management of distributed energy supply and use networks, or the autonomous operation of intelligent networked robotics.
Telecommunicationsxe2x80x94is understood in the broadest sense to mean the transfer of information of any kind across distances by wired, cabled, or wireless means.
telhex servicesxe2x80x94also include the integration of part or all of the above forms of functionality such as required for the provision of services to, or by, third parties. These applications, for example, may be limited in scope to specific categories like surveillance and security of premises, provision of multimedia entertainment, or encompass large and complex ranges of networked activities such as in the operation of a hospital, a university campus, an assembly plant, a chemical processing plant, or a whole industrial estate. These activities also encompass the provision of networked administrative consumer services such as banking and insurance, and the facilitation of business transactions of all kinds (from video conferencing to means of electronic payments that preserve full privacy).
Beside the availability of the necessary technology, the development of networked systems endowed with distributed artificial intelligence and telhex functionality is driven by major independent economic and societal change trends. The two main aspects of these trends are: (1) the globalisation of the world economy and its implications for the way economic transactions and information exchanges take place; and (2) related changes in people""s social and working life, their lifestyles, work environments, and work practices.
The former of these trends is characterised by the delocalisation of economic transactions. While physical aspects of production, transport, and consumption processes take place at specific geographical locations or routes, the corresponding social, economic and commercial transactions themselves increasingly take place in an informational space that is logically non-local, that is, not geographically located. This non-geographical space is now commonly referred to as xe2x80x9ccyberspacexe2x80x9d. Here social, economic and commercial transactions include orders, purchases, sales, marketing, collection, storage and exchanges of information of all kinds, and in particular production, storage, and exchange of units or amounts of monetary value as in contemporary banking and financial systems, but also new and emerging various forms of electronic cash, creation and handling of legal and commercial instruments (such as contracts, tender documents, bills of lading, and so on), creation and operation of commercial or not-for-profit organisations, and other agencies (such as limited liability companies, co-operatives, associations, incorporated institutions, government agencies, and so on), and engaging in the full range of human social and cultural interactions when these are taking place in a distributed manner beyond ordinary earshot and eyesight.
Such non-local transactions, exchanges or interchanges increasingly take place by networked electronic media rather than face-to-face. Such electronic means, already in existence or under development, are limited in scope and capacity relative to emerging market requirements.
The latter of the trends referred to above is characterised by the rapid destruction of traditional neighbourhoods, work practices and work environments, which until recently provided in rich and varied ways the core facets of people""s social life. In the new social and economic environment traditional patterns are fast replaced with personal networks that are geographically distributed over wide areas (such as sprawling suburbs, other cities, other countries). These networks encompass family, friends, work partners and associates, clients, suppliers, competitors, and so on that are specifically geographically located, and, increasingly, non-local organisations and agencies as described above.
These networks are extremely complex, loosely structured and forever changing. At the corporate, national, and international levels, the corresponding infrastructures increasingly require extensive and intensive use of networked telhex services as well as the assistance of artificial intelligence and expert systems (for example, in the cases of the operation of large telecommunications networks, distance education, networked health agencies, transnational or multinational commercial operations, in particular by way of intranets).
The functionality requirements are increasingly defined in terms of self-management, self-routing, and robotics. The overall characteristic of systems meeting such demands is called autopoiesis, meaning literally xe2x80x9cself-makerxe2x80x9d in the sense of self-creation and self-construction.
In essence, the major contemporary trends referred to earlier require a wide range of electronic networked autopoietic systems to mediate between local and non-local social and economic activities. This mediation is a historically new development that is not well addressed by existing technology or technology currently under development.
Further, the emergent forms of social and economic organisation and ways of doing business increasingly rely on modes of communication that differ profoundly from the dominant modes of organisation found in existing network technology. The latter are still predicated on historical waves of technology development that have traditionally imposed topologies that are characterised by some form of hierarchy, including some central controlling agency, and that incorporate some tree-like structure (see FIG. 1). In contrast, the former rely on loose ever-changing networks that are inherently non-hierarchical, and require various forms of co-operation among local and non-local agencies.
New approaches in the cognitive sciences and related domains of communication, social and economic research are being developed which provide improved understandings of the changes. In particular Varela et al. (The Embodied Mind, Cognitive Science and Human Experience, The MIT Press (1992)) have pointed out the convergence between, and the considerable advantages that could be found in integrating, recent developments in the fields of artificial intelligence, networked systems, cybernetics, robotics, and cognitive sciences on the one hand (referred to as cognitive network research in the remainder of this description), and the long-standing epistemological traditions found in Zen, Vajrayana, Madhyamika and Abidharma on the other hand (referred to in summary form as Zen in the remainder of this description).
At the heart of this convergence is a renewed understanding of the fundamentals of communications between people and the structural coupling of cognitive or intelligent networks with their environment. The consequential integration of cognitive network research outcomes and Zen referred to above is carried out in the present invention in the form of a new paradigm that enables the development of non-hierarchical models. In turn this new paradigm serves as the basis for the specification of the apparati and methods described in the present invention that enable the design, production and deployment of non-hierarchical autopoietic networks that are endowed with distributed artificial intelligence, and are able to meet the new demands through telhex functionality. These paradigm, apparati and methods constitute a radical departure from present development trends and stand in marked contrast with current sate of the art.
The latter show a profound inadequacy relative to the new demands resulting in an increasing divergence between the two. In the case of telecommunications, for example, state of the art technology tends to connect end-users through sets of hierarchically organised and layered exchanges that are structured according to tree-like patterns. FIG. 1 describes a path linking subscribers A and B through a typical complex and extensive route tracing back and forth through a series of tree nodes and/or exchanges while A and B are geographically contiguous. Most state of the art technologies do not allow the development of flexible direct routes between A and B.
These considerations apply also to prior art for mobile communications such as cellular phones that are structured as networks of cells. Such systems require an infrastructure of fixed antennas or cellular towers, central agencies or exchanges, and a limited number of interconnect points between competing networks that all impose a strong hierarchical structure on the overall system used to link mobile units as they move from cell to cell. Such systems marginally add mobile functionality to pre-existing hierarchically structured wired or cabled networks. They do not meet telhex functionality requirements of the non-hierarchical networks customers are seeking to develop and use.
As a consequence of the prevalence of hierarchical and tree-based models in prior art, customers and users that are seeking to operate their own networks in co-operative ways that are inherently non-hierarchical and non-local are being forced to use systems and infrastructures that are profoundly hierarchical and increasingly constrained in their capacity, speed and throughput.
Faced with this situation, the response of network developers and service providers has been to keep adding to existing infrastructure and technology by increments without questioning the ongoing adequacy of rationale for prior art. This approach has perpetuated and worsened the problems associated with the hierarchical logic discussed above and has entrenched it instead of mitigating its effects.
Further, current hierarchical and tree-based network models are extremely rigid in their implementation. Nodes cannot be easily physically relocated without substantial costs. Increases in the density of nodes require extensive rewiring, cabling, and laying down of new lines. Overall such systems are capital infrastructure, operation and maintenance cost intensive, in particular, in the form of copper and/or optical fibre cabling, grids of towers and antennas, and layered networks of exchanges. Further, in situations where new networks are being established, such as in numerous developing countries, or where networks need to be re-developed as in previously centrally planned economies, and in areas with difficult terrain wired and/or, cabled systems are often unpractical and/or prohibitive.
Another complementary industry response is to develop multimedia networks with expanded broadband capacities. This is particularly the case in the telecommunications and cable TV industries with bandwidth requirements of at least 100 Mb/s and preferably more than 200 Mb/s. There are two competing approaches: wired and/or cabled, and wireless. The substantially asymmetrical throughput capabilities of broadband systems presently under development is a major disadvantage that is mostly inherited from underlying historical hierarchical structures. Increasingly, network users require to transmit and exchange large amounts of information bidirectionally and in real time with up-links of similar capacity as downlinks, that is, in largely symmetrical ways. The heavy infrastructure costs and, as a general rule, inherent tree-like character of wired or cabled broadband systems are further disadvantages. Because of this, wireless approaches are increasingly preferred, in particular, as noted above, for new developments, re-developments, and in difficult terrain.
However, prior art for wireless systems has been and is being developed in ways that emulate existing wired and cellular systems and therefore exhibit similar underlying hierarchical tree-like topologies such as dense networks of fixed overlapping cells requiring heavy infrastructure investments in towers, antennas, and exchanges.
Because of the above, the major shifts towards increased bandwidth by wired and/or wireless means do not address the emerging market problems and demands outlined above.
Before presenting and discussing the fundamental premises of the present invention, a range of prior art solutions related to the problems described above will now be discussed with a particular focus on telecommunications as such technologies impinge on practically all aspects of the development of large networked systems.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,583,914 (to Chang et al) describes an intelligent wireless signalling overlay for a telecommunication network. The system described is an add-on to an existing wired network and uses a database of locations of the terminations to define the routing used. A particular embodiment of the invention uses GPS devices to provide location data. The database however, is centralised and it is the central routing system that selects voice and data transmission paths. These are optimised according to pre-established criteria. Although the system makes heavy use of wireless links between nodes, the actual structure that implements a given optimised path remains hierarchical and tree-like.
A number of prior art documents implement neural networks for routing packets, (for example see U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,028). In the field of cellular technology, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,434,950 describes a method for making hand-over decisions in a radio communication network. The system uses a neural network that mirrors the network of each base station. The neural networks learn hand-over patterns from the actual network. This system is an add-on to existing tree-like systems based on a hierarchy of exchange centres. It does not alter the basic routing protocol and operation of the telecommunications system.
More relevant prior art relating to non-hierarchical network models may be found in satellite technologies such as the Iridium and Teledesic systems. These are intended to provide universal and expanded telecommunications services wirelessly anywhere in the world. Satellite networks operate essentially as relays or bridges over large distances that interconnect users transparently with each other and existing telecommunication systems through gateways.
The Iridium system is controlled by a master control facility whereby each satellite is connected to four others. The overall system includes six orbital levels with eleven operational satellites each. The system is therefore a fixed grid of limited throughput capacity for the direct subscriber to subscriber portion and also functions as a long distance add-on to existing hierarchical telecommunication systems.
The Teledesic system is designed to provide a wireless, fibre-like universal telecommunication services with a capability that extends to video conferencing. The Teledesic system was developed as a global infrastructure, which is intended to allow local service providers to extend their existing networks. It is therefore essentially an add-on, which operates via gateways. The Teledesic system is designed to minimise latency regardless of applications that can tolerate delays such as video-on-demand, versus applications that cannot tolerate such delays such as voice communications.
The Teledesic satellite network is designed to be isolated from terrestrial systems and operates under separate protocols. Thus, it is inherently separate from an end user network environment. Because of the distributed algorithm used independently by each node, this satellite system is described as a non-hierarchical mesh. However, the Teledesic system is, in effect, hierarchical in two ways. Firstly, it involves two layers that are clearly distinct by design and are hierarchically structured with respect to distribution of power and bandwidth capacity. Thus, speed of transmission and routing decisions are also hierarchically structured. Secondly, inside the satellite network itself, there is a logical hierarchy between adjacent communicating satellites and the others.
Further, the Teledesic satellite network system relies on overlapping coverage and on-orbit-spare satellites to maintain satellite system integrity. In this sense, its telecommunications model is comparable to overlapping cell systems developed for terrestrial broadband systems.
Networks of this type are also finite. They are not designed to be added to endlessly with nodes positioned at random locations.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,091 (Schroeder et al) describes a High Speed Mesh Controlled Local Area Network. This technique attempts to solve problems encountered in a mesh network with an arbitrary topology (that is, neither linear nor ring networks). These problems include deadlock, handling broadcast messages, network reconfiguration when a node fails and routing messages so that network throughput is higher than that of a single link. As such, Schroeder et al. addresses some of the same problems addressed by the present invention.
However, the proposed solution involves the use of cut-through non-blocking switches connected by series of point to point links with the mesh actually structured as a tree. Any change in the mesh necessitates a complete reconfiguration that recomputes all the legal paths for routing messages through the network. This latter feature appears cumbersome and would severely limit application of the method to large telecommunication networks. The logical tree structure superimposed on the non-hierarchical topology serves to define routing rules for up and down links. For example, packets received downlinks can only be forwarded on downlinks. While such a structure solves the problems addressed by Schroeder et al., it does not fully address the broader problems identified by the present invention such as the seamless integration of mobile units in a non-hierarchical mesh and the development of large meshes. Schroeder et al. limit their invention to, at most, 1408 host computers.
To summarise, prior art relating to non-hierarchical telecommunication systems is generally concerned with improving routing through existing hierarchical networks. Such improvements are generally effected by methods such as overlaying a non-hierarchical trunk line mesh over part of a network for overflow handling; overriding a network hierarchy by using processes at control switch points to define alternative route choices; detecting and mitigating local exchange failure; or overlaying an expert system (such as a neural network) to operate a non-hierarchical part of an international network.
While some methods use a type of dynamic interaction between nodes, the generic approaches are similar to those analysed above in that nodes act like switching automatons using routing tables. The dynamic component is essentially a trial and error system adapted to identify alternative routes in an otherwise hierarchical system. To the applicant""s knowledge, all prior art examples correspond to add-ons and are profoundly different from the present invention both in network structure and operating methodologies.
It is also known in the prior art to implement types of artificial intelligence in order to overcome present network limitations and to expand the capabilities of advanced intelligent networks. In particular, a consequence of the hierarchical structure of present networks is that a very large centralised computer package is needed to control them. An example of such a system is that used by British Telecom to manage its network. This system is reported to be approaching its operational limit. The use of software agents and developments in the expanding field of distributed artificial intelligence are being proposed to alleviate the network operating and management problems such as encountered by British Telecom. In this context, an interesting prior art technique, which seeks to overcome these network limitations, does so by the use of software agents called xe2x80x9cantsxe2x80x9d. These approaches mimic, more or less closely, the routing behaviour of real ants. Ants are known to direct traffic flow of fellow ants towards the shortest route towards the food they have found by means of heuristic processes. Ants leave pheromone scent trails wherever they go. Other ants that follow such trails also leave scent. Thus, trails that prove the shortest route are more scented and become the favoured path. The trails of scent constitute a kind of distributed memory of the network status.
Ant software agents are endowed with properties that mimic this behaviour in various ways. British Telecom""s ants for example, are hierarchical. A large programme wanders randomly across the network and assesses traffic at each node. At points of congestion, it creates smaller xe2x80x9cworker antxe2x80x9d programmes that move to neighbouring nodes to assess routes with spare capacity and update the routing tables at each node accordingly, thus leaving behind them improved routing trails. This approach can however lead to circular routes.
Developments in this area have sought to expand the capabilities of ants both at the local level and at the overall level of network management (such as billing tasks). Related developments have explored the use of genetic algorithms and evolutionary protocols such as implementations of xe2x80x9csurvival of the fittestxe2x80x9d strategies. This is intended to enable ant-software to evolve and develop their capabilities to a point where they can run an entire network autonomously. Major risks and disadvantages in the above approaches include the potential for damaging software at the nodes in the network in ways that cannot easily be corrected, ants evolving the capability to resist attempts at eradicating rogue ants, and ants escaping on a competitor""s network.
Similar problems related to topology, telhex services, and the deployment and use of distributed artificial intelligence, are also encountered in numerous other commercial areas, such as computer networks, super-computers and massively parallel machines, energy supply and use networks, networked machinery and processing chains used by a wide variety of manufacturing industries, as well as in the health, education, and entertainment industries.
An inadequate paradigm of subject-object relations and subject-subject communications is found at the heart of the above problems. While this has been known and studied for a long time in the epistemology of Zen, as discussed in detail by Varela et al. (1992) (op. cit.) for example, it is only recently that this issue has started to be recognised in cognitive science and the related fields of Artificial Intelligence, cybernetics and robotics. Yet, up to the present, the implications of the need to adopt a new paradigm in the latter domains, and in the broader field of communications, have not yet been systematically analysed. Based on the following discussion, the present invention offers a new communication paradigm and uses it to specify a set of network and network models, apparati, and a generic method for operating same.
Current and state-of-the-art relating to communications and handling of objects is based on a dual Aristotelian logic that, in its simplest expression, postulates two items, an emitter and a receiver. A relation between the two carries messages from emitter to receiver. This is shown in Schematic 1 where the emitter is E, the receiver R, and the message carrying relation f(m): 
With reference to Teundroup (L""Immortalitxc3xa9 est la Mort des Illusions, in Question De, No. 71, pp 119-138, Paris (1987)), this structure is, in effect, a particular version of the more general subject/object dual postulates as described in Schematic 2: 
S and O represent respectively any subject and object. The squares emphasise that they are perceived to be fixed in their nature and are independent and distinct from one another. f(r) represents any one-to-one relation between S and o. This structure is generally perceived as a fair representation of how people interact with things and other people around them, and of how, in particular, they communicate. In practice, however, this description can be seen to be, at best, a crude approximation, as is analysed below.
Fr={f(r)i}. Fr thus defines how any S interacts with its environment when it is perceived as distinct from self and composed of separate objects. O may be called the set of such objects, O={oi}. Schematic 3 represents this more general description: 
S""s awareness of its own existence only occurs by virtue of distinctions from that which it is not. In this perspective, S""s awareness of its own existence happens only through Fr. Similarly, for an external observer who abides by the same generic relational logic, the awareness of the existence of S is contingent on Fr-like sets. It effectively follows that S""s ego, that is, S""s sense of self, is identical with Fr. However, this also means that the existence of the elements of O, that is, the objects in S""s environment, is contingent upon S""s capture of them through Fr. This dual relationship is more accurately described by Schematic 4 that highlights the reciprocal determination of S and O by each other through Fr: 
However, this means further that neither S nor O exist by and in themselves independently from one another. They are in some form of correlation with each other, and Fr is better expressed as a correlation function Fc. This can be represented more specifically by Schematic 5: 
This means that, from a point of view that is independent from S and O, and not predicated on the prior existence of subjects and objects as fixed independent entities, the only existence that can be stated conclusively is that of the operational capability of the correlation function as expressed in Schematic 5: 
In other words, objects and subjects experienced through such correlations are void of proper existence in and for themselves (notion of vacuity). Those items, the experiences expressed through Fc (S, O), are called xe2x80x9cdharmasxe2x80x9d in Zen psychology and epistemology. A dharma is the co-arising of both S and the endless series of objects oi so that the awareness of S, that of O, and of the relations S entertains with O are concomitant and cannot be dissociated. Given the infinite multiplicity of possible sets of objects, and the parallel multiplicity of possible subjects that can be defined in this way, in its most generic form, this awareness is the set "PHgr"c of relationship functions of which, in effect, S and O are sub-sets (see Schematic 7): 
Schematic 6 and Schematic 7 are more accurate characterisations of how people interact with their environment and communicate with each other than Schematic 1 and Schematic 2.
However, prior art in the domains of artificial intelligence and cybernetics has developed in two main directions, symbolic versus connectionist, that both remain predicated on the paradigms expressed in Schematic 1 and Schematic 2. This relates in particular to the use of experts systems using symbolic processing of data, and approaches based on neural networks. It is being increasingly recognised that neither approach on its own can suffice to develop advanced forms of artificial intelligence and be applied reliably to operate large commercial networks (see in particular Minsky, M., 1990, xe2x80x9cLogical vs Analogical or Symbolic vs Connectionist or Neat vs Scruffyxe2x80x9d, in Artificial Intelligence at MIT, Expanding Frontiers, Winston, P. H., (Ed.), MIT Press), and above discussion on software ants). A satisfactory integration of the two approaches or alternative route remains to be developed. The difficulty they face is that is neither integrates the above critique of subject/object relations.
Similarly, in the fields of robotics, and software agents, cognitive approaches have sought to structure systems through functional layers that are meant to mimic the human mind or the minds of less developed cognitive systems such as that of insects. Here again two main approaches can be found. Some, like Aaron Sloman (University of Birmingham) have adopted layers defined in terms of operational functions such as perception, central hierarchical systems of reaction, management, and metamanagement, and action sub-systems, while others like Rodney Brooks (MIT""s AI Laboratory) have criticised the former and opted for approaches to the development of autopoietic cognisant systems through the definition of layers in terms of activities, such as identifying, monitoring, avoiding, rather than operational functions. Yet neither side has integrated the need to radically alter fundamental paradigms of cognition reflected in the above discussion of subject/object dialectics.
Further, Varela et al. (1992, Op. Cit.) have stressed that both autopoiesis and cognition, in cognitive networked systems like the brain, appear to be emergent properties of massive interconnections amongst networks of distributed systems that are also themselves networks of systems without any apparent hierarchy or centralised controlling system. In other words, autopoiesis and cognition are predicated on the dense dynamic interconnection of numerous simple components that each operate in their own local environment and that are structured as networks of networks where member networks have a degree of autonomy. In this respect, Varela et al. have pointed out the incoherences and contradictions in much of the fields of cognitive science and artificial intelligence that result from failing to draw the full implications of the above considerations regarding cognitive networks. In contrast, they have shown how Abidharma and Zen have developed an extremely refined and coherent epistemology of cognition that matches the empirical findings of modern science and can serve as a starting point to develop more effective approaches that do not fall prey to the pitfalls and difficulties outlined above. Yet, up to the present, the potential of Zen epistemology for the development of autopoietic intelligent networks has not been effectively translated into practice.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome or at least mitigate the disadvantages and problems encountered in prior art and discussed above. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new paradigm for the development of networked systems, and based on this new paradigm to provide a set of networks and network models, apparati, and a method for operating same that are able to meet the emerging market requirements referred to above. A further object is to emulate how users socially and economically interact with each other through their own informal networks, in particular through face to face interactions, and how they interact with objects and machinery in their immediate environment.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method that enables the development and deployment of distributed artificial intelligence in cybernetic networks that operate in symbiosis with human societies and human intelligence in safe, seamless, and flexible ways or to provide the public with a useful choice.
In one aspect the invention provides an autopoietic networked system which mediates local and non-local activities by interacting with the environment in which the activities occur in hermeneutic fashion through iterative heuristic sequences that the system uses to develop satisfactory actions, these actions being actions that satisfy requirements or criteria set by users or designers of the system.
The heuristic sequences are the enactment of distinctions the system makes and extracts out of the background flow of environmental data, said distinctions referring to the process of selecting data as being relevant for specific activities by reference to corresponding set criteria such as by trial and error iterative selection process or any other process that satisfies the set requirements or criteria.
The operation of the system is preferably experiential that is, entirely based on experience.
The system preferably may be self similar at all levels of aggregation at which they are considered so that it displays fractal features and can be characterised as a fractal system, and may be structured as a network of networks that may individually display said self similar characteristics.
The system is preferably non-hierarchical but may exhibit hierarchy in some applications, and works preferably through co-operative interactions among member networks, the co-operative interactions meaning that the components of the system work together to carry out tasks without the interactions themselves being governed by a hierarchical structure.
The system and its member networks, if any, are structurally coupled with their environment through the aforementioned hermeneutic processes wherein they are not based on, and do not use a priori representations of their environment or themselves.
The system and its member networks if any preferably co-develop and evolve with their environment through relationships which arise in a co-dependent manner.
The hereinbefore defined mediation and actions carried out by the system via the aforementioned hermeneutic processes and structural coupling are independent of any a priori data pertaining to, statement regarding, or hypothesis, the users or designers of the system could make about the state and or nature of the system and or its environment.
At each level of aggregation, member networks of said fractal system preferably display operational closure wherein, while the mode of operation of individual components may be that of distributed non-symbolic forms of processing wherein such member systems preferably display operational closure in relation to other members, interactions between member networks preferably occur through symbolic information exchange and processing wherein the overall systems themselves preferably display operational closure in relation to their environments.
The autopoietic system as hereinbefore defined are systems that are endowed with telhex functionality wherein said functionality being defined as any or all of telesthesia, meaning remote sensing, telemetry, meaning remote measurement, telekinesis, meaning remote mechanical action, telepresence, meaning forms of presence effected at a distance and interactions with remote environments and the people, animals and or object they contain through such telepresence, telemanagement, meaning management of people, things, devices and or processes at a distance, and telecommunications meaning any form of transfer of information or data at or over some distance, said telhex functionality being structured and adapted to match the forms of human consciousness that are related to the five senses and more broadly in terms of contact, feeling, discernment, intent, attention, and other such functions as that may be required for and integrated into interpretative cognition, discriminatory consciousness, and storehouse consciousness or memorisation.
The structured telhex functionality of the autopoietic system defines layers of activity that apply at all levels of aggregation of said system and are referred to as layered functionality.
At all the levels of aggregation, the autopoietic system displays a dual structure with at least some of its internal organisation being intimately related to local activities through local apparati, whilst the overall system is non-local in its logic of operation.
Preferably, the system adapts to changes in its environment in a manner which is proscriptive and specifies non-allowed behaviour of the system thus allowing the system to behave in any manner that is not proscribed.
Preferably, the adaptation is performed by selecting solutions that satisfy performance criteria rather than by optimisation routes with respect to set criteria.
In a further aspect the invention provides an autopoietic network system adapted to operate with the telhex functionality, and preferably incorporating distributed artificial intelligence, including:
a plurality of cybernetic devices adapted to function as both the infrastructure of the network and the means by which network services are delivered to network users, wherein said cybernetic devices are particularly adapted to deliver said services to a specific region of space and to communicate with other cybernetic devices in such as manner that the network is in the form of a fractal, non-hierarchical mesh, so that the mesh is self-similar, said mesh having a structure, at a specified degree of aggregation, which is substantially similar to that at any other degree of aggregation at which the fractal mesh is considered.
Preferably, cybernetic devices functioning at a simplest level of aggregation are referred to as assistants and are preferably but not necessarily restricted to a specified region of space, cybernetic devices functioning at a next more complex level of aggregation are referred to as minders, cybernetic devices functioning at a higher level of complexity are referred to as metaminders, and cybernetic devices functioning at yet a higher level of complexity are referred to as hyperminders.
Said cybernetic devices may be adapted to operate in a region of space or in relation to a group of cybernetic devices with which they are associated as well as facilitating communications from and to other cybernetic devices.
Said cybernetic devices may be adapted to supervise or mind one or more other cybernetic devices functioning at a lower level of aggregation or complexity where said supervised cybernetic devices may be clustered or distributed in space, and/or any other type of implements, machines, systems, animal, or person
The invention further provides for a cybernetic device including:
hardware adapted to deliver specific telhex functionality to a region of space with which it associated; and
communications means adapted to allow communications with other cybernetic devices.
Preferably said telhex functionality includes provision of communications for data, voice, videophony, video-on-demand, entertainment, security, educational, health-care, premises management, energy supply and management, banking and such like purposes.
Preferably the cybernetic devices further include processing and memory means and more preferably location determination means such as GPS or similar.
In an alternative embodiment the cybernetic devices may include input and/or output means including video, audio or the like.
The cybernetic devices may be incorporated into, or connected (wirelessly, wired, or cabled) to ancillary devices such as network computers, inertial or other non-GPS based guidance devices.
In a preferred embodiment, the number of levels of aggregation is not limited.
In alternative embodiments the communication means between cybernetic devices may involve wired, cabled and/or wireless network means.
In a preferred embodiment, the communication means are wireless.
In a preferred embodiment of telecommunication applications the wireless means use LMCS or LMDS radio frequencies (respectively meaning Local Multipoint Communication or Distribution Services or Systems), and typically located in most countries in the 25 GHz to 31 GHz and 42 GHz to 47 GHz ranges.
Preferably the communication devices incorporate electronic circuits which include one or more programmable element, such as a field programmable gate array, a field programmable analog array or a [so-called] dynamically programmable gate array.
The programmable element may be interfaced so as to take as an input a bit stream to be transmitted and produce, as output, the intermediate frequency for the said wireless communication device.
This intermediate frequency may be of the digital or analog types.
The choice of digital or analog intermediate frequency is determined by the evolution scheme used to programme the device as may be required in specific applications.
Preferably the cybernetic devices may be programmed using a technique which may emulate Darwinian evolution by generating large numbers of solutions covering numerous possibilities within preset specifications and then selecting the fittest to serve as the starting point for a new iteration wherein selection processes are continued until a satisfactory outcome has been achieved relative to set operating criteria.
Other iterative programming methods may be used, such as variations on simulated annealing and other stochastic ensemble procedures.
Preferably two types of evolution scheme may be used, wherein the first type selects a suitable modulation scheme, and evolves an implementation wherein a digital intermediate frequency is used, and the transmitter and receiver designs are evolved separately and wherein the second type specifies a communication link model, and evolves a transceiver design that satisfies the design constraints of the model.
Preferably the design constraints may include regulatory constraints such as the bandwidth for the link that is required for specific applications.
Preferably, the evolution scheme will also evolve a modulation scheme.
An analog intermediate frequency may be used.
The evolution scheme proceeds by a series of steps which may be implemented by means such as genetic algorithms, simulated annealing algorithms, backpropagation of errors or other similar iterative procedures.
Such genetic algorithms are preferably of a class known as minimization algorithms and require a measure known as a cost function or error metric to minimize wherein suitable cost functions must include at least the bit error rate, consideration of out of bandwidth spectral components, and speed of transmission.
Preferably the system is left free to evolve compression algorithms that will improve the efficiency of the link.
In a further aspect the invention provides for a method of operating networked systems including the steps of:
establishing a set of basic operational algorithms related to the operation of the network, said algorithms adapted to provide telhex functionality and said algorithms being preferably developed and selected through the proscriptive logic and the method of evolutive satisfaction as hereinbefore described.
Preferably transitory local or non-local software entities are created that reflect the state of the network environment at various or selected levels of aggregation or the task or activities to which the network is to be put.
Preferably said software entities are referred to as dharmas by reference and deference to the Zen epistemological tradition.
The dharmas are aggregated or compiled from the basic set of algorithms through an operational syntax that enables the hereinbefore defined heuristic and hermeneutic sequences, structural coupling, operational closure, telhex functionality and methods of proscriptive logic and evolutive satisfaction.
Preferably the syntax correspond to a set of logical rules that governs the gathering and aggregation of algorithms to create dharmas and that translate, in any computer language capable of implementing the said heuristic and hermeneutic sequences in local and non-local manner, the logical operations of the network.
Preferably, the dharmas are adapted to achieve hereinbefore defined co-operation among member components of said networked system, such members being local cybernetic devices and related networked software, and non-local networked software both local and non-local software being networks of dharmas referred to as metadharmas or Mdharmas.
Preferably the dharmas operate through heuristic hermeneutic sequences.
The dharmas are preferably designed to achieve operational closure of the member networks and overall network, structural coupling of the member networks and overall network with their respective environments, co-operation among member networks, Mdharmas and other cybernetic components, mediation between local and non-local activities, including communications and other telhex functionality, preferably through hereinbefore defined layered functionality.
Preferably said dharmas and Mdharmas are adapted and set to evolve through hereinbefore-defined proscriptive logic and method of evolutive satisfaction.
Preferably the network operates by means of dharma software entities that are created as a result of requesting the network to perform any task; whereby said dharma software entities are comprised of groups of basic operational algorithms and/or are evolutively created by prior such software entities from an original set of such said operational algorithms.